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Articles of Interest

Pope Francis Preaches Mercy At Mass in Vatican Parish

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By The Huffington Post News Editors

* Pope says Mass in Vatican’s small parish church
* Says people should not be so quick to condemn
* Delivers simple homily without notes
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY, March 17 (Reuters) – Pope Francis took on the role of a simple parish priest on Sunday, saying Mass for the Vatican’s resident community and urging listeners to not to be so quick to condemn others for their failings.
Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, said Mass for a few hundred people in Santa Anna, a church just inside the Vatican walls that is used as the parish church for workers in the city-state.
Before he entered the tiny church, Francis stopped to greet cheering well-wishers who had lined up outside a nearby Vatican gate shouting “Francesco, Francesco, Francesco,” his name in Italian.
He chatted and laughed with many of them before pointing to his black plastic wrist watch and saying: “It’s almost 10 o’clock. I have to go inside to say Mass. They are waiting for me.”
Wearing the purple vestments of the liturgical season of Lent, which ends in two weeks on Easter Sunday, he delivered a short homily in Italian, without notes, centred on the gospel story of the crowd that wanted to stone a woman who had committed adultery.
Jesus told them “let him among you who is without sin, cast the first stone” and then told the woman “go and sin no more”.
“I think even we are sometimes like these people, who on the one hand want to listen to Jesus, but on the other hand, sometimes we like to stone others and condemn others. The message of Jesus is this: mercy,” he said.
“I say in all humility that this is the strongest message of the Lord: mercy,” Francis said, speaking in a soft voice. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

Articles of Interest

Spiritual Pope Francis Starts First Day With Prayer (VIDEO)

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By The Huffington Post News Editors

* Bergoglio is first non-European pope in 1,300 years
* A conservative Jesuit known for his humility
* “May God forgive you,” he joked with cardinal-electors (Updates with pope picks up bags, quote, cartoon)
By Philip Pullella and Crispian Balmer
VATICAN CITY, March 14 (Reuters) – Pope Francis, barely 12 hours after his election, quietly left the Vatican early on Thursday to pray for guidance as he looks to usher a Roman Catholic Church mired in intrigue and scandal into a new age of simplicity and humility.
Francis, the Argentinian cardinal who has become the first pope born outside Europe in 1,300 years, went to Rome‘s 5th-century Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore; there he prayed before a famed icon of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which is known as the Salus Populi Romani, or Protectress of the Roman People.
“He spoke to us cordially, like a father,” said Father Ludovico Melo, a priest who prayed with the new pontiff. “We were given 10 minutes’ advance notice that the pope was coming.”
The first leader of the church to come from the Americas, home to nearly half the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Francis also takes the title of bishop of Rome.
In his first words to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday evening he made clear that he would take that part of his role seriously and made good on the promise by visiting one of the Italian capital’s most important churches.
From there, he asked the driver to go to a Rome residence for priests so that he could pick up bags he left there before he moved to a guesthouse inside the Vatican for the electoral conclave – a wry reminder that he did not expect to become pope.
Later on Thursday he was to go to the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, to pay meet Emeritus Pope Benedict, who last month became the first pontiff in 600 years …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post